No gangster has ever been more powerful than Charles "Lucky" Luciano (1897-1962). By the mid-1920s, he had taken over the New York bordellos and was making more than a million dollars a year. In 1931 he engineered the murders of the two reigning New York crime bosses, Joe Masseria and Salvatore Maranzano, and quickly took over the entire New York crime racket. Now Luciano was the Boss of Bosses, the undisputed leader of the National Crime Syndicate which he had established, along with Meyer Lansky, Louis "Lepke" Buchalter, Joe Adonis, and Frank Costello, in the early 1930s. His fall came in...
No gangster has ever been more powerful than Charles "Lucky" Luciano (1897-1962). By the mid-1920s, he had taken over the New York bordellos and was m...